Wish List

From Openmoko

This article is a place to collect various thoughts about the future of the OpenMoko software platform. Most wish list ideas have been linked from this page, but you may also wish to check all pages that have a category of 'Ideas'.

UI Designer

Glade code generation is deprecated, so we don't want to use it. The Gtk+ powers told me that the plan is to have gtk 2.12 (out early 2007) with support for GtkBuilder, a libglade derivative which breaks a bit the XML definition in order to support all the new widgets and properties; as soon as it's in the other ui builders will add support for this format. See also the relevant bug entry

Community Support

projects.openmoko.org

Infrastructure for developers with

One bugzilla for all projects (makes moving bugs forth and backwards between projects very easy)

One mailing list for project

Platform

Community Images

In the future there could be complete, unofficial "product images" that are created by the community, for example maybe one that incorporates only free software (in the GNU or OSI sense). Or images build with a particular niche market in mind -- a student for example.

Software: Additional features

Calling

Speaker-phone

A speaker-phone is more than simply connecting the speakers to GSM audio, it's also echo cancellation, and eliminating the feedback that will otherwise happen between the speakers and the mic. This software has not been written.

Advanced Airtime Tracking

Many phone users have complicated plans, things like unlimited incoming, 100 anytime minutes, 1000 evening minutes, etc. It would be nice if a user could input the various monthly airtime chunks their plan gives them, and then the phone could track how much is left in each chunk, i.e. How much anytime minutes are left this month? Optionally, the software could warn when someone is close to the monthly limit, to help avoid bigger bills.

Anti-stutter software

Delayed Auditory Feedback (DAF) has shown to reduce stuttering in individuals by 70%. By using the microphone, it should be pretty simple to implement this on the OpenMoko. The DAF functionality should also be present during phone calls. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_auditory_feedback for more information.

Minimize In-Call mode (check address book while in call)

On my locked phones I always find it annoying that one can not use other features while a call is in progress. In particular, I'd like to access the address book so that we can (1) give a caller someone else's phone number (or other info) and (2) lookup a phone number when using a calling card or some other proxy.

Similar request when using the browser (lookup passwords, todo list, etc).

People hear music when they call you

You know how on most cellphone networks you can pay so that people will hear music when they call you? I think we should do that. If this option is turned on (maybe it could be set for each person in your phone book) the Neo can automatically answer the call, mute the microphone, and play the selected sound file over the GSM connection to the caller. To you the Neo looks exactly as it does when anybody calls you, but behind the scenes it's playing music for the caller. When you answer the call, the music fades out and the microphone comes back on. Of course, callers could abuse this feature costing you minutes, which is why it should be individually set for each entry in the phonebook (defaulting to off) and you can only turn it on for people you trust.

Ambient Noise Detection

Active noise control

Using the microphone to do active noise control on media player playback or telephone calls. This should be an independent module/library which can be used by any application which might require this feature. also provide a way to easily alter the parameters of the active noise control.

Ignore-Call Button

Another alternative might be to use microphone to recognize when the user gives an audible "Shhh!" command. This could prove difficult to determine with the simultaneous ringing, and possible in-pocket shuffling noises.

On-Phone voice mailbox that records calls on the phone and retrieves voice messages from your mobile service provider's voice mailbox and saves them locally.
Can act profile-dependent.

Mute Button

Button to temporarily disable microphone while talking for applications such as telephone, audio recording and (when available) movie recording.

Hold Button

Similar to mute, but plays a sound file for the user on the other end while they wait. The sound file could be chosen in some setup beforehand.

Automated profile switching

With a "silent mode" timeout, there is no need to turn the ringer back on if you previously know how long will be the film/meeting/...

Profile zoning - define different zones for switching different profiles automatically either by GPS zoning, Wi-Fi proximity or GSM base station proximity.

Profile scheduling - more complex than timeout. Ability to create a schedule for activating different profiles, or integrate profile switching with the schedule.

PIM

Text Messaging

For Text Input related ideas see Wishlist:Text_Input. Bear in mind that T9 can not be included
For current development status of the messaging-app see: Messages

There are many useful options that now can be used to full capacity:

Acknowledge/status SMS

In GSM networks so-called acknowledge-SMS are sent back to the SMS's dispatcher in order to indicate that the primal sms was received (as message delivery is only best effort and is not guaranteed). So in the SMS dialog there could be equal sized buttons with captions as 'send only', 'send and receive delivery status message' and 'send and notify (e.g. ring) when delivery succeeded'.

Special handling of status-SMS

Related to the previous entry, these acknowledgment-sms' should be handled in a different way than normal SMS'. Most Motorola do this, while Samsung SGH series don't & clog the inbox, warn of a "new" message upon Status notification: Delivery Status Messages should be stored in a separate menu so they don't bloat the received-folder and you are able to quickly review the status of the messages you had sent.

SMS at time/date You could be able to set up messages that are sent at a certain time/date

Profile-override-SMS SMS that start with a certain code word override the silent profile and have the phone ring. So someone could alert you in case of some emergency.

Codeword-SMS An expansion of the above: check for code words and allow selectable tones for matches. E.g. "Server Down!" has a loud klaxon, "Disk Warning" has a quiet chirp.

(De-)Abreviation-script Implement a script that de-abbreviates: "hi m8 u k?-sry i 4gt 2 cal u lst nyt-y dnt we go c film 2moz" becomes "Hi mate. Are you okay? I am sorry that I forgot to call you last night. Why don't we go and see a film tomorrow?" (taken from: [6])

Implement a script that abbreviates :-)

Anti-Spam ...feature for SMS. May be it's possible to port some Bayesian based application like bogofilter.

Rule based authorizations ...for received messages. For example, delete messages from one source between 9h00 and 18h00 (workday) allow them otherwise (to get alerting messages).

Enable chat-like SMS-viewing SMS-Email-like: retain SMS app, but store 'conversations' rather than pile-up. Group/archive conversations by Caller Group (Work / Friends / Home / any user-defined Caller Group). Show appropriate icon from either Caller Group or Caller ID at the source of conversations panel

Call Back Prompt 'Call Back' alongside other first-line options (Delete, Save number,.. this kind of options) that appear when reading an SMS.

Non-destructive deletion, deleted messages goes to trash, and are recoverable.

SMS-EMail-Gateway

SMS comes in, gets forward to your inbox, like any other piece of mail. Appropriate alerts and etc occur - again, just like for email. A simple SMTPD running on 127.0.0.1 that is hooked to an email-to-SMS translator that will send email addressed to 'SMS@localhost' (or whatever special address) out via SMS

User Profiles

This is different from contextual profiles for mobile phones, that might for example turn off the ringer, and turn on 'vibrate', when you select 'quiet'.

They are profiles to let the owner of the phone set it up in a comfortable manner, without configuring every aspect.

The first modes are easily switchable between by the user, as they are also the owner of the phone.
In the Child, Employee, Subscriber cases, this may not be the case.

For example, for an employees phone, it may:

Record GPS track log whenever it is in range of a certain bluetooth device (the employees company vehicle)

Record all calls during working hours.

Disallow installation of non-company-approved software.

For a child's phone, it may:

Constantly record GPS once a minute.

Mail GPS recordings to parents once an hour.

Record all phone calls

Disallow installation of software that is not 'child' rated.

For these modes to be tamper proof, it would require on-phone security.
A version of u-boot that would only allow signed images and some application on owners PC to generate them, and set policy.

Music/Video Software

A real good programming area for competition with the iPhone, a singular video/music player would be great for multimedia. A seamless integration system, a la iTunes and iPod, would be extremely popular.

Using the Wi-Fi connectivity, a separate music program that supports wireless music sharing/ streaming (similar to what can be done when two computer running iTunes that are both on the same network) and that also supports internet radio.

Address Book

Option to search not just the stored list of addresses, but one or more of the online phonebooks. Probably should be modular to make adding/changing phonebook sites easy. Also allows for future integration with LDAP

servers or whatever.

Web-based map-lookup. 'How do I get there from here? (here = current GPS location)' This could also be done

by integrating with whatever on-phone GPS mapping software the Neo ends up using.

Random text input 'notes' about a contact

Overall, this should more resemble a Palm-pilot's address-book than your average cellphone's

Automated Daily backup of phone book to a website archive (similar to Verizon's Back-up Assistant

Ability to integrate address book with web-based email (such as gmail) account, for those who use web based email as their primary account

Tagging Place tags for contacts. Enhance message application to send messages to all contacts tagged with ... . Enhance other application(GPS, ...) with tags.

Store Bluetooth IDs of friends and notify (configurable only on this device or on both devices) when a one of these Bluetooth ID has been detected (this is more a separate application but has requirements on the address book.

Web-browser Plugins

While an extensive browser plugin system would be costly to the efficacy of the platform three particular browser plugins as poplularized by Mozilla firefox should be adapted to the web-browser, namely: noscript, adblock plus, greasemonkey and foxmarks.

Careful use of these can dramatically reduce bandwidth, page space, and rendering costs even if it comes at the risk of some hard drive space in the form of block lists.

Greasemonkey, in particular, gives users control to set up scripts for commonly traveled pages to further reduce unnecessary or unwanted content.

E-Book Reader

Neos brilliant ultra-sharp screen makes for a very good e-book reading device. All it takes is a good e-book reader with touch-screen page turning / scrolling. FBReader could probably be adjusted easily by an experienced GTK hacker. Note that e-book reading is different to pure text/pdf displaying as it requires at least auto-bookmarking of the last read page, proper text and image scaling and text formatting.

Misc Software

A Universal Unit Converter Tool

One never knows when one may have to convert acre-feet into deciliters. A unit conversion tool makes all engineers and engineer wannabes much happier.

An Postfix Notation (RPN) calculator

Many engineers, computer scientists and other groups who have grown to enjoy the simplicity and ease of an postfix notation calculator will miss them when give up other platforms to move to OpenMoko. A RPN calculator will increase adoption by providing one of the tools that other platforms have provided for many years.

PalmOS Emulator

The Access group is probably coming out with their Linux platform any time soon. One of the components is a PalmOS emulator which I'd like to see working on OpenMoko as well. There are literally thousands of PalmOS apps.

Win CE emulator
I'd like to see a Windows CE Emulator with active sync support.

Egg Timer

Very simple (one click) count up / count down timers are very useful. Wishlist:EggTimer

Database/List Display/Edit

Joe's Goals

It'd be nice to have something like Joe's Goals always available, like my phone is, even when I'm disconnected from the net.

Workout

Use your phone instead of your notebook while at the gym, and get pretty graphs to admire after you're done.

TV Guide/Remote Control

Use your Phone to easily program your VCR using EPGs.

Shopping List

keep Track of Prices in different shops and the products you have/don't have. Ideally using a barcode reader and gps.
If it was made aware of recipes it could even tell you what to buy without entering a shoppinglist manually.

Fuel Log

Automatically storing the GPS coordinates of the place where the car has been fueled (can be deactivated)

Sending the data to a central server which collects the information

Let the OpenMoko receive fuel logs per SMS (e.g. if my wife with a non-openmoko mobile fuels the car and wants to file the data using her mobile phone)

Let the OpenMoko device act as SMS gateway for non-openmoko devices to easily send the data to the central server

Also support for air log for divers. Not that you will take this device under water but for the crew at the surface.

Dictionary, thesaurus and translator

Native lookup dictionary and thesaurus and foreign translation dictionaries, also with support for Asian languages. Optional custom configurable (though preconfigured) interface with on-line versions of dictionaries, thesaurus and translation services.

Keep in touch reminder

A background application which keeps track of your friends and reminds you when you have not talked, SMS, IM or mailed a person for more than # days.

Alcohol meter

Give the phone some info about your body (gender, size, weigth) and when/what you drink and it will compute an approximation of the amount of alcohol in your blood. Updates automatically, could have an alarm, when you are probably sober again.
See, for example (German text) http://www.misterio-online.de/promille.htm

Menstruation period timer

Interaction with LEGO Mindstorm

With the accelerators, GPS and good CPU, the phone could be used to control/serve as input with robots built with LEGO Mindstorm, which can be accessed by USB and Bluetooth.

Accessibility

Accessibility features for the visually impaired.

High Contrast Themes.

Screen Magnifier. Features should include automatic cursor tracking when navigating menus and entereing text and provide manual controls to zoom in on other section of the screen.

Text to speech. The software should read out menu item ,contact lists ,text messages etc. Would also be useful for operating the phone while driving.

VOIP

Ability to use the phone for VOIP over wi-fi such as Vonage. They currently have 2 different pieces of software for pc . Basically software creates a mac address which is paired with your Vonage account. Skype could also be implemented but I prefer Vonage. Only available when connected to wi-fi with a good connection. Phone treats calls the same as a cellular call, could keep a separate log of minutes, ability to record conversations, etc. Option to use VOIP if connection is available automaticly or manually. Small icon to show when call is using VOIP.

A standard SIP client would probably fit better into the "free and open" philosophy.

Power Meter

If the power bar is clicked on it will show time left on charge and if charging it will show time until full.

Zfone or similar

Something that allows the user to speak with another person securely.

Flick interface

Ability to "flick" the phone for page up/down by simply and rapidly tilting the phone back-and-forth for up and forth-and-back for down. The same motion can be implemented for sideways motion. This will take advantage of the 2 3d accelerators.

Shake-to-Wake

Giving the phone a shake enables voice commands for a few seconds.
Usage Examples:

Would require a method of inputting voice tags for applications and contacts and obviously will only work for P2 (accelerators)

Tactile feedback via buzzer

Assuming the hardware has a vibrator/buzzer for silent calls, use a lightly pulsed version of that to simulate tactile feedback when dragging finger across buttons on-screen. Implemented properly, it would almost feel as if the buttons were real.

VNC client

A good, stylus friendly VNC client/host combo would be easy to add and terribly useful.

Bluetooth

Voice Dialing

Dial by voice commands.

Music through Bluetooth Headset

Music can be played through a Bluetooth headset, but would stop playing when a call comes in.

Walkie Talkie

Let OpenMoko devices connect to one another via bluetooth or another connection method (GPRS for long distance but high latency, probably Wifi on P2), and hold a conversation.

Features for this applications can be:

Push To Talk (PTT) button

Voice Activated Control (VAC) which will set it in transmit mode when input has is detected above a certain predefined level.

Optionally a full duplex mode

Different channels to choose from

Monitor different (preselected or all) channels for traffic.

Content encryption

Active noise control

Local (non-GPRS) use cases include chatting while biking
or motorcycling in a group; perhaps also in a car caravan.
This application could also be used as a baby-phone to monitor your siblings.

This would be more useful if the Neo had Class 1 bluetooth, though probable Wifi on P2 will also offer more range.

Automatic Sync

Automatically synchronize with desktop computer when within range based on user profile. This may require the use of a secure data transfer.

GPS Assisted Bluetooth Management

Allow Bluetooth to automatically turn off after loosing connectivity and to automatically turn back on based upon GPS location.

A Bluetooth device is configured for automatic reacquisition based on the following profiles:

Manual - only when Bluetooth is on

Non-mobile - the target device is not mobile, periodically attempt reacquisition when in the general area of the device.

Mobile - the target device is mobile, periodically attempt reacquisition when in the general area of the device.

Non-mobile devices

Examples devices include: computers

The location and range of the target device is determined via training. Periodically, the current GPS coordinates and Bluetooth signal strength are logged. Additionally, connectivity loss events are logged. An algorithm uses these logs to determine the device location and range.

Connection attempts are made when in a configurable proximity to the device. The first attempt when entering the proximity and further attempts at a configurable interval.

Mobile devices

Example devices include: automobiles

Mobile devices are configured to have two types of locations:

Last known location

Non-mobile locations (homes)

Last known location

A car is mobile, ideally, when you leave your car, the phone should note the car's location when connectivity is lost and then attempt to reacquire the car when you return to the location of the car.

Non-mobile locations (homes)

As mobile devices may have multiple users, it is not sufficient to always use the last known location. In this case, the device may additionally have multiple homes. For example, a car might have as its homes: home garage and work parking lot.

Bluetooth neighbor detection and multiuser apps

Like the one laptop per child (OLPC) interface, keep a number in the status bar that represents a count of other openmoko or compatible bluetooth devices in the area. Allow for the spontaneous initiation of a chatroom or multiplayer game or file trading with any moko in the area.

Remote control

Wireless presenter

Use the phone to run your presentation using Bluetooth. Cool features: 1) Display the text notes for the presenter on the phone's display and update it whenever the slide is changing. Have a mode with small text and a mode with enlarged text and scrolling function. 2) A small timer showing the time passed (and perhaps remaining if the presentation app supports such a feature). 3) If you want to be super-cool, you give a preview thumb of the coming slide. 4) At the end of presentations and general slide navigator could be shown that allows to easily jump to any slide in the presentation by clicking on it on the phone.

Initiated from another device

Remote control over Bluetooth from other devices to control media player (play, pause, next, previous, volume control), camera (capture image), etc.

Directed at another device

Remote control over Bluetooth to other devices to control media player, lights in your house, etc.

Z-wave uses web-browser control of devices that is said to be compatible with mobile phone browsers so should work with openmoko browser. www.z-wave.com

Bluetooth Car Connection

Have a deeper connection to the car than just handsfree speakerphone. For instance a transceiver with challenge/response systems to open, possibly even start the car. Possibly go as far as OBD connection to monitor car status on screen/log for later.

Dude, Where's My Car?

When in range of the car navigation system, remember the position (perhaps check with the car GPS). When not in range, assumme that you are not in the car, and offer the opportunity to navigate to the car's last known position. That way, you can find your car e.g. on a large parking lot.

Calling out via SIM card B - the OpenMoko-phone acts again as a headset

Same for Short Messages/MMS/Internet

This way you'd have your old phone switched silent and connected to your OpenMoko-phone that handles all the calls and one can select which SIM card to use.
Advantage: No 'switching' between cards
Disadvantage: Second mobile needs to be in range(e.g. handbag) and charged every once in a while.

Internet Gateway

If the device could function as a Bluetooth router/gateway to the internet via the GPRS/data connector, then you could use it to get network connectivity from your laptop and other devices while on the road. Many smartphones can be configured as modems via Bluetooth for use as Dial-Up Networking connectors, and that should be the minimum target. Ideally, if the WiFi functionality was used so the OpenMoko could be an 802.11 router or peer to peer gateway for a laptop, this would be even better. The full bandwidth of GPRS or whatever network is available would then be available.

Context based TO-DO list

Exchange Integration

Once there is good TCP/IP connectivity on this phone, integration with corporate email/calendar/to do/etc servers would be a big advantage... near-real-time automatic email downloads and automatic bi-directional syncing are productivity boosters that you have to experience to appreciate. It turns your phone from a 'nice gadget to fiddle with' to a natural-feeling extension of your day-to-day life.

Is the time right to name names ? Add as your liking...

Plugin/integration to & from Kontact

Same with Evolution - Thunderbird - Seamonkey

?? Google Calendars ?? (this one is tough)

Vibrate Pattern Recorder

An application that would allow the user to define their own vibration patterns, and possibly link them to audio files. Recording would be done in real time initiated with a "Record" button, optionally playing the associated sound file in sync with recording). While recording, the user would press and hold a button to define the timing and duration of vibration. The user would press "Stop" when finished. Vibration patterns would have the option of being looped(would terminate at some global ringtone length maximum).

One simple suggested vibration file format would be a sort of run-length encoding: First byte defines the length of a "time-slice" in milliseconds, which would determine the overall tempo(actually the inverse of tempo). The next byte would define the number of time-slices to leave the vibration on, and then another byte for how long to pause after. Continue alternating these on/off bytes until the entire pattern is defined.

- or just use MIDI, using a separate channel for the vibrator.

PC Input Device

Provide a method to use the touchscreen as input device for a nearby desktop machine. Could connect over USB or bluetooth.

Advanced Notification And Ringtone Manager

ANARM would be an application for handling all event-based audible notifications from an OpenMoko device.

Conversation Recorder

An option to record phone conversations. Would be helpful to have the device always recording for every call, with the sound data encoded to low quality Ogg Vorbis or SPEEX and stored in RAM. At the end of the conversation the user would have the option to save to flash or discard the conversation. This idea could also be applied to voicemail so you could save voicemails locally.

Location based reminders

Anti Theft mode

Suppose you are in a busy environment and your device is lying around somewhere. You sometimes use it but cannot look after it all the time. A sort of high risk environment for phone theft where you could put it in anti theft mode which is enabled when someone moves it or touches the touch screen. This, of course will be set off after a predefined time out awaiting a password to unlock this mode (unprompted?). From the moment it has been moved or touched it will display a warning on a red background flashing in black: You are committing a crime. Put this phone back, now! or any other predefined text. If it is not unlocked it will set off a loud alarm and start sending messages to a predefined email address with pictures, GPS coordinates and network pings.

Sport tracker

Sport tracker can be used to measure the distance/velocity from point A to point B (or it could have several intermediate stopping points) using GPS. This would be extremely useful for running, biking, hiking, etc.

Standby clock

Cycle Computer

As already mentioned by Technil, a cycle computer could be created using gps. The sensor at the bike's wheel could transmit data via bluetooth or some cable that would be attached to an openmoko device. In order to save power, one could switch off the gps and only use the bike's sensor.

Just another idea that came to me: Why don't have sensor's transmit cable plug into the headphone/microphone plug? A tool reads the signals created by the induction of the passing magnet, then gives them to the cycle-computer-app :) --Minime 19:50, 12 April 2007 (CEST)

Internet Connection Management

An application that automatically chooses the best available connection method, between Bluetooth, USBnet, Wifi, GPRS, etc. For GPRS or other services where the user may be paying per kb, there should be options to limit data transfer. The user could be asked permission to transfer data: per connection, per process, per process for a specific time limit, per process for a specific data size limit, etc.

Synergy Client

A synergy client would enable the user to place the device next to a desktop PC and share the desktop`s mouse, keyboard and clipboard over a TCP/IP network. Synergy

Mask ID based on dialed numbers

It would be nice if my number only showed up when I call people in my address book and was otherwise masked. The phone I have now either always shows my number or never or can be set on a per call basis. Having it done automatically based on the number dialed would be good.

Software: Language bindings

Python bindings

Python bindings seem to be a commonly requested feature.

User:Mickey says, "They are kind of usable on the Nokia 770, but it's at the lower end of being bearable. We should keep this in mind -- Gtk+ already comes with Python Bindings, so we "just" would need to wrap libmoko*. I would prefer to leave this to the community do though, since it doesn't make sense to start wrapping the API until we have a stable API -- and I can imagine it will take us a couple of months after going open until we can start with stabilizing the libmoko API."

C++ bindings

There is a whole skilled C++ community coming from the Qtopia and Opie projects. If we would consider basing OpenMoko C++ Bindings on Gtkmm, then we could drag these guys in.

Other bindings

Perl

Ruby

C#

I think you could skip a bunch of these by binding to Dbus; most languages already have Dbus bindings

Software: Foreign Widget Set Bindings

Qt Integration

The Trolltech folks have a great widget library. I'd like to interface OpenMoko with Qt4, so that we can write Qt4 applications for the phone which don't look alienated.

Maemo Integration

The Maemo folks have created a successful standard for Webpad applications. I'd like to have a set of MaemoMoko and MokoMaemo wrapper classes that allow me add support for running OpenMoko applications on Maemo and vice versa. Perhaps we can get help from the Nokia OSS folks for that.

wxWidgets Integration

wxWidgets is a cross-platform application framework that's very popular (I'd say, #3 after Qt and Gtk+). On Linux, wxWidgets uses Gtk+ to implement the widgets. It shouldn't be hard to add support for the additional OpenMoko classes to wxWidgets hence supporting the native OpenMoko look and feel for wxWidgets applications.

wxWidgets team wants OpenMoko classes too and we (wxWidgets) plan to include this project as one of our ideas for GSoC 2007

SDL Integration

SDL is the game developer library. There are tons of SDL games out there. We should add OpenMoko support into SDL.

GPS Software

Providing GPS Support also for outdoor users in addition to ordinary street navigation features

Overlay of satellite images with existing streetmaps

Incorporating SRTM digital elevation model: for example using the VRML/X3D as data format (see http://www.ai.sri.com/geovrml/) which is interesting for e.g. mountaineering: using a 3d browser rendering VRML/X3D Model, displaying the current position and track (possibly also other gps-tracks of the different routes to a summit downloaded before could be mapped onto the 3d model), (what about 3d hardware support? there is nothing written in the hardware specs about graphics: thinking of OpenGL for embedded systems (see http://www.khronos.org/opengles/)

Using sth like a tracking mode to allow certain people to determine the current position and track (for rescue missions)

Hardware

Views

Personal tools

This article is a place to collect various thoughts about the future of the OpenMoko software platform. Most wish list ideas have been linked from this page, but you may also wish to check all pages that have a category of 'Ideas'.

Development

Painless SDK installation & Setup

Our goal should be a completely painless setup for somebody wanting to develop using OpenMoko

UI Designer

Glade code generation is deprecated, so we don't want to use it. The Gtk+ powers told me that the plan is to have gtk 2.12 (out early 2007) with support for GtkBuilder, a libglade derivative which breaks a bit the XML definition in order to support all the new widgets and properties; as soon as it's in the other ui builders will add support for this format. See also the relevant bug entry

Community Support

projects.openmoko.org

Infrastructure for developers with

One bugzilla for all projects (makes moving bugs forth and backwards between projects very easy)

One mailing list for project

Platform

Community Images

In the future there could be complete, unofficial "product images" that are created by the community, for example maybe one that incorporates only free software (in the GNU or OSI sense). Or images build with a particular niche market in mind -- a student for example.

Software: Additional features

Calling

Speaker-phone

A speaker-phone is more than simply connecting the speakers to GSM audio, it's also echo cancellation, and eliminating the feedback that will otherwise happen between the speakers and the mic. This software has not been written.

Advanced Airtime Tracking

Many phone users have complicated plans, things like unlimited incoming, 100 anytime minutes, 1000 evening minutes, etc. It would be nice if a user could input the various monthly airtime chunks their plan gives them, and then the phone could track how much is left in each chunk, i.e. How much anytime minutes are left this month? Optionally, the software could warn when someone is close to the monthly limit, to help avoid bigger bills.

Anti-stutter software

Delayed Auditory Feedback (DAF) has shown to reduce stuttering in individuals by 70%. By using the microphone, it should be pretty simple to implement this on the OpenMoko. The DAF functionality should also be present during phone calls. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_auditory_feedback for more information.

Minimize In-Call mode (check address book while in call)

On my locked phones I always find it annoying that one can not use other features while a call is in progress. In particular, I'd like to access the address book so that we can (1) give a caller someone else's phone number (or other info) and (2) lookup a phone number when using a calling card or some other proxy.

Similar request when using the browser (lookup passwords, todo list, etc).

People hear music when they call you

You know how on most cellphone networks you can pay so that people will hear music when they call you? I think we should do that. If this option is turned on (maybe it could be set for each person in your phone book) the Neo can automatically answer the call, mute the microphone, and play the selected sound file over the GSM connection to the caller. To you the Neo looks exactly as it does when anybody calls you, but behind the scenes it's playing music for the caller. When you answer the call, the music fades out and the microphone comes back on. Of course, callers could abuse this feature costing you minutes, which is why it should be individually set for each entry in the phonebook (defaulting to off) and you can only turn it on for people you trust.

Ambient Noise Detection

Active noise control

Using the microphone to do active noise control on media player playback or telephone calls. This should be an independent module/library which can be used by any application which might require this feature. also provide a way to easily alter the parameters of the active noise control.

Ignore-Call Button

Another alternative might be to use microphone to recognize when the user gives an audible "Shhh!" command. This could prove difficult to determine with the simultaneous ringing, and possible in-pocket shuffling noises.

On-Phone voice mailbox that records calls on the phone and retrieves voice messages from your mobile service provider's voice mailbox and saves them locally.
Can act profile-dependent.

Mute Button

Button to temporarily disable microphone while talking for applications such as telephone, audio recording and (when available) movie recording.

Hold Button

Similar to mute, but plays a sound file for the user on the other end while they wait. The sound file could be chosen in some setup beforehand.

Automated profile switching

With a "silent mode" timeout, there is no need to turn the ringer back on if you previously know how long will be the film/meeting/...

Profile zoning - define different zones for switching different profiles automatically either by GPS zoning, Wi-Fi proximity or GSM base station proximity.

Profile scheduling - more complex than timeout. Ability to create a schedule for activating different profiles, or integrate profile switching with the schedule.

PIM

Text Messaging

For Text Input related ideas see Wishlist:Text_Input. Bear in mind that T9 can not be included
For current development status of the messaging-app see: Messages

There are many useful options that now can be used to full capacity:

Acknowledge/status SMS

In GSM networks so-called acknowledge-SMS are sent back to the SMS's dispatcher in order to indicate that the primal sms was received (as message delivery is only best effort and is not guaranteed). So in the SMS dialog there could be equal sized buttons with captions as 'send only', 'send and receive delivery status message' and 'send and notify (e.g. ring) when delivery succeeded'.

Special handling of status-SMS

Related to the previous entry, these acknowledgment-sms' should be handled in a different way than normal SMS'. Most Motorola do this, while Samsung SGH series don't & clog the inbox, warn of a "new" message upon Status notification: Delivery Status Messages should be stored in a separate menu so they don't bloat the received-folder and you are able to quickly review the status of the messages you had sent.

SMS at time/date You could be able to set up messages that are sent at a certain time/date

Profile-override-SMS SMS that start with a certain code word override the silent profile and have the phone ring. So someone could alert you in case of some emergency.

Codeword-SMS An expansion of the above: check for code words and allow selectable tones for matches. E.g. "Server Down!" has a loud klaxon, "Disk Warning" has a quiet chirp.

(De-)Abreviation-script Implement a script that de-abbreviates: "hi m8 u k?-sry i 4gt 2 cal u lst nyt-y dnt we go c film 2moz" becomes "Hi mate. Are you okay? I am sorry that I forgot to call you last night. Why don't we go and see a film tomorrow?" (taken from: [6])

Implement a script that abbreviates :-)

Anti-Spam ...feature for SMS. May be it's possible to port some Bayesian based application like bogofilter.

Rule based authorizations ...for received messages. For example, delete messages from one source between 9h00 and 18h00 (workday) allow them otherwise (to get alerting messages).

Enable chat-like SMS-viewing SMS-Email-like: retain SMS app, but store 'conversations' rather than pile-up. Group/archive conversations by Caller Group (Work / Friends / Home / any user-defined Caller Group). Show appropriate icon from either Caller Group or Caller ID at the source of conversations panel

Call Back Prompt 'Call Back' alongside other first-line options (Delete, Save number,.. this kind of options) that appear when reading an SMS.

Non-destructive deletion, deleted messages goes to trash, and are recoverable.

SMS-EMail-Gateway

SMS comes in, gets forward to your inbox, like any other piece of mail. Appropriate alerts and etc occur - again, just like for email. A simple SMTPD running on 127.0.0.1 that is hooked to an email-to-SMS translator that will send email addressed to 'SMS@localhost' (or whatever special address) out via SMS

User Profiles

This is different from contextual profiles for mobile phones, that might for example turn off the ringer, and turn on 'vibrate', when you select 'quiet'.

They are profiles to let the owner of the phone set it up in a comfortable manner, without configuring every aspect.

The first modes are easily switchable between by the user, as they are also the owner of the phone.
In the Child, Employee, Subscriber cases, this may not be the case.

For example, for an employees phone, it may:

Record GPS track log whenever it is in range of a certain bluetooth device (the employees company vehicle)

Record all calls during working hours.

Disallow installation of non-company-approved software.

For a child's phone, it may:

Constantly record GPS once a minute.

Mail GPS recordings to parents once an hour.

Record all phone calls

Disallow installation of software that is not 'child' rated.

For these modes to be tamper proof, it would require on-phone security.
A version of u-boot that would only allow signed images and some application on owners PC to generate them, and set policy.

Music/Video Software

A real good programming area for competition with the iPhone, a singular video/music player would be great for multimedia. A seamless integration system, a la iTunes and iPod, would be extremely popular.

Using the Wi-Fi connectivity, a separate music program that supports wireless music sharing/ streaming (similar to what can be done when two computer running iTunes that are both on the same network) and that also supports internet radio.

Address Book

Option to search not just the stored list of addresses, but one or more of the online phonebooks. Probably should be modular to make adding/changing phonebook sites easy. Also allows for future integration with LDAP

servers or whatever.

Web-based map-lookup. 'How do I get there from here? (here = current GPS location)' This could also be done

by integrating with whatever on-phone GPS mapping software the Neo ends up using.

Random text input 'notes' about a contact

Overall, this should more resemble a Palm-pilot's address-book than your average cellphone's

Automated Daily backup of phone book to a website archive (similar to Verizon's Back-up Assistant

Ability to integrate address book with web-based email (such as gmail) account, for those who use web based email as their primary account

Tagging Place tags for contacts. Enhance message application to send messages to all contacts tagged with ... . Enhance other application(GPS, ...) with tags.

Store Bluetooth IDs of friends and notify (configurable only on this device or on both devices) when a one of these Bluetooth ID has been detected (this is more a separate application but has requirements on the address book.

Web-browser Plugins

While an extensive browser plugin system would be costly to the efficacy of the platform three particular browser plugins as poplularized by Mozilla firefox should be adapted to the web-browser, namely: noscript, adblock plus, greasemonkey and foxmarks.

Careful use of these can dramatically reduce bandwidth, page space, and rendering costs even if it comes at the risk of some hard drive space in the form of block lists.

Greasemonkey, in particular, gives users control to set up scripts for commonly traveled pages to further reduce unnecessary or unwanted content.

E-Book Reader

Neos brilliant ultra-sharp screen makes for a very good e-book reading device. All it takes is a good e-book reader with touch-screen page turning / scrolling. FBReader could probably be adjusted easily by an experienced GTK hacker. Note that e-book reading is different to pure text/pdf displaying as it requires at least auto-bookmarking of the last read page, proper text and image scaling and text formatting.

Misc Software

A Universal Unit Converter Tool

One never knows when one may have to convert acre-feet into deciliters. A unit conversion tool makes all engineers and engineer wannabes much happier.

An Postfix Notation (RPN) calculator

Many engineers, computer scientists and other groups who have grown to enjoy the simplicity and ease of an postfix notation calculator will miss them when give up other platforms to move to OpenMoko. A RPN calculator will increase adoption by providing one of the tools that other platforms have provided for many years.

PalmOS Emulator

The Access group is probably coming out with their Linux platform any time soon. One of the components is a PalmOS emulator which I'd like to see working on OpenMoko as well. There are literally thousands of PalmOS apps.

Win CE emulator
I'd like to see a Windows CE Emulator with active sync support.

Egg Timer

Very simple (one click) count up / count down timers are very useful. Wishlist:EggTimer

Database/List Display/Edit

Joe's Goals

It'd be nice to have something like Joe's Goals always available, like my phone is, even when I'm disconnected from the net.

Workout

Use your phone instead of your notebook while at the gym, and get pretty graphs to admire after you're done.

TV Guide/Remote Control

Use your Phone to easily program your VCR using EPGs.

Shopping List

keep Track of Prices in different shops and the products you have/don't have. Ideally using a barcode reader and gps.
If it was made aware of recipes it could even tell you what to buy without entering a shoppinglist manually.

Fuel Log

Automatically storing the GPS coordinates of the place where the car has been fueled (can be deactivated)

Sending the data to a central server which collects the information

Let the OpenMoko receive fuel logs per SMS (e.g. if my wife with a non-openmoko mobile fuels the car and wants to file the data using her mobile phone)

Let the OpenMoko device act as SMS gateway for non-openmoko devices to easily send the data to the central server

Also support for air log for divers. Not that you will take this device under water but for the crew at the surface.

Dictionary, thesaurus and translator

Native lookup dictionary and thesaurus and foreign translation dictionaries, also with support for Asian languages. Optional custom configurable (though preconfigured) interface with on-line versions of dictionaries, thesaurus and translation services.

Keep in touch reminder

A background application which keeps track of your friends and reminds you when you have not talked, SMS, IM or mailed a person for more than # days.

Alcohol meter

Give the phone some info about your body (gender, size, weigth) and when/what you drink and it will compute an approximation of the amount of alcohol in your blood. Updates automatically, could have an alarm, when you are probably sober again.
See, for example (German text) http://www.misterio-online.de/promille.htm

Menstruation period timer

Interaction with LEGO Mindstorm

With the accelerators, GPS and good CPU, the phone could be used to control/serve as input with robots built with LEGO Mindstorm, which can be accessed by USB and Bluetooth.

Accessibility

Accessibility features for the visually impaired.

High Contrast Themes.

Screen Magnifier. Features should include automatic cursor tracking when navigating menus and entereing text and provide manual controls to zoom in on other section of the screen.

Text to speech. The software should read out menu item ,contact lists ,text messages etc. Would also be useful for operating the phone while driving.

VOIP

Ability to use the phone for VOIP over wi-fi such as Vonage. They currently have 2 different pieces of software for pc . Basically software creates a mac address which is paired with your Vonage account. Skype could also be implemented but I prefer Vonage. Only available when connected to wi-fi with a good connection. Phone treats calls the same as a cellular call, could keep a separate log of minutes, ability to record conversations, etc. Option to use VOIP if connection is available automaticly or manually. Small icon to show when call is using VOIP.

A standard SIP client would probably fit better into the "free and open" philosophy.

Power Meter

If the power bar is clicked on it will show time left on charge and if charging it will show time until full.

Zfone or similar

Something that allows the user to speak with another person securely.

Flick interface

Ability to "flick" the phone for page up/down by simply and rapidly tilting the phone back-and-forth for up and forth-and-back for down. The same motion can be implemented for sideways motion. This will take advantage of the 2 3d accelerators.

Shake-to-Wake

Giving the phone a shake enables voice commands for a few seconds.
Usage Examples:

Would require a method of inputting voice tags for applications and contacts and obviously will only work for P2 (accelerators)

Tactile feedback via buzzer

Assuming the hardware has a vibrator/buzzer for silent calls, use a lightly pulsed version of that to simulate tactile feedback when dragging finger across buttons on-screen. Implemented properly, it would almost feel as if the buttons were real.

VNC client

A good, stylus friendly VNC client/host combo would be easy to add and terribly useful.

Bluetooth

Voice Dialing

Dial by voice commands.

Music through Bluetooth Headset

Music can be played through a Bluetooth headset, but would stop playing when a call comes in.

Walkie Talkie

Let OpenMoko devices connect to one another via bluetooth or another connection method (GPRS for long distance but high latency, probably Wifi on P2), and hold a conversation.

Features for this applications can be:

Push To Talk (PTT) button

Voice Activated Control (VAC) which will set it in transmit mode when input has is detected above a certain predefined level.

Optionally a full duplex mode

Different channels to choose from

Monitor different (preselected or all) channels for traffic.

Content encryption

Active noise control

Local (non-GPRS) use cases include chatting while biking
or motorcycling in a group; perhaps also in a car caravan.
This application could also be used as a baby-phone to monitor your siblings.

This would be more useful if the Neo had Class 1 bluetooth, though probable Wifi on P2 will also offer more range.

Automatic Sync

Automatically synchronize with desktop computer when within range based on user profile. This may require the use of a secure data transfer.

GPS Assisted Bluetooth Management

Allow Bluetooth to automatically turn off after loosing connectivity and to automatically turn back on based upon GPS location.

A Bluetooth device is configured for automatic reacquisition based on the following profiles:

Manual - only when Bluetooth is on

Non-mobile - the target device is not mobile, periodically attempt reacquisition when in the general area of the device.

Mobile - the target device is mobile, periodically attempt reacquisition when in the general area of the device.

Non-mobile devices

Examples devices include: computers

The location and range of the target device is determined via training. Periodically, the current GPS coordinates and Bluetooth signal strength are logged. Additionally, connectivity loss events are logged. An algorithm uses these logs to determine the device location and range.

Connection attempts are made when in a configurable proximity to the device. The first attempt when entering the proximity and further attempts at a configurable interval.

Mobile devices

Example devices include: automobiles

Mobile devices are configured to have two types of locations:

Last known location

Non-mobile locations (homes)

Last known location

A car is mobile, ideally, when you leave your car, the phone should note the car's location when connectivity is lost and then attempt to reacquire the car when you return to the location of the car.

Non-mobile locations (homes)

As mobile devices may have multiple users, it is not sufficient to always use the last known location. In this case, the device may additionally have multiple homes. For example, a car might have as its homes: home garage and work parking lot.

Bluetooth neighbor detection and multiuser apps

Like the one laptop per child (OLPC) interface, keep a number in the status bar that represents a count of other openmoko or compatible bluetooth devices in the area. Allow for the spontaneous initiation of a chatroom or multiplayer game or file trading with any moko in the area.

Remote control

Wireless presenter

Use the phone to run your presentation using Bluetooth. Cool features: 1) Display the text notes for the presenter on the phone's display and update it whenever the slide is changing. Have a mode with small text and a mode with enlarged text and scrolling function. 2) A small timer showing the time passed (and perhaps remaining if the presentation app supports such a feature). 3) If you want to be super-cool, you give a preview thumb of the coming slide. 4) At the end of presentations and general slide navigator could be shown that allows to easily jump to any slide in the presentation by clicking on it on the phone.

Initiated from another device

Remote control over Bluetooth from other devices to control media player (play, pause, next, previous, volume control), camera (capture image), etc.

Directed at another device

Remote control over Bluetooth to other devices to control media player, lights in your house, etc.

Z-wave uses web-browser control of devices that is said to be compatible with mobile phone browsers so should work with openmoko browser. www.z-wave.com

Bluetooth Car Connection

Have a deeper connection to the car than just handsfree speakerphone. For instance a transceiver with challenge/response systems to open, possibly even start the car. Possibly go as far as OBD connection to monitor car status on screen/log for later.

Dude, Where's My Car?

When in range of the car navigation system, remember the position (perhaps check with the car GPS). When not in range, assumme that you are not in the car, and offer the opportunity to navigate to the car's last known position. That way, you can find your car e.g. on a large parking lot.

Calling out via SIM card B - the OpenMoko-phone acts again as a headset

Same for Short Messages/MMS/Internet

This way you'd have your old phone switched silent and connected to your OpenMoko-phone that handles all the calls and one can select which SIM card to use.
Advantage: No 'switching' between cards
Disadvantage: Second mobile needs to be in range(e.g. handbag) and charged every once in a while.

Internet Gateway

If the device could function as a Bluetooth router/gateway to the internet via the GPRS/data connector, then you could use it to get network connectivity from your laptop and other devices while on the road. Many smartphones can be configured as modems via Bluetooth for use as Dial-Up Networking connectors, and that should be the minimum target. Ideally, if the WiFi functionality was used so the OpenMoko could be an 802.11 router or peer to peer gateway for a laptop, this would be even better. The full bandwidth of GPRS or whatever network is available would then be available.

Context based TO-DO list

Exchange Integration

Once there is good TCP/IP connectivity on this phone, integration with corporate email/calendar/to do/etc servers would be a big advantage... near-real-time automatic email downloads and automatic bi-directional syncing are productivity boosters that you have to experience to appreciate. It turns your phone from a 'nice gadget to fiddle with' to a natural-feeling extension of your day-to-day life.

Is the time right to name names ? Add as your liking...

Plugin/integration to & from Kontact

Same with Evolution - Thunderbird - Seamonkey

?? Google Calendars ?? (this one is tough)

Vibrate Pattern Recorder

An application that would allow the user to define their own vibration patterns, and possibly link them to audio files. Recording would be done in real time initiated with a "Record" button, optionally playing the associated sound file in sync with recording). While recording, the user would press and hold a button to define the timing and duration of vibration. The user would press "Stop" when finished. Vibration patterns would have the option of being looped(would terminate at some global ringtone length maximum).

One simple suggested vibration file format would be a sort of run-length encoding: First byte defines the length of a "time-slice" in milliseconds, which would determine the overall tempo(actually the inverse of tempo). The next byte would define the number of time-slices to leave the vibration on, and then another byte for how long to pause after. Continue alternating these on/off bytes until the entire pattern is defined.

- or just use MIDI, using a separate channel for the vibrator.

PC Input Device

Provide a method to use the touchscreen as input device for a nearby desktop machine. Could connect over USB or bluetooth.

Advanced Notification And Ringtone Manager

ANARM would be an application for handling all event-based audible notifications from an OpenMoko device.

Conversation Recorder

An option to record phone conversations. Would be helpful to have the device always recording for every call, with the sound data encoded to low quality Ogg Vorbis or SPEEX and stored in RAM. At the end of the conversation the user would have the option to save to flash or discard the conversation. This idea could also be applied to voicemail so you could save voicemails locally.

Location based reminders

Anti Theft mode

Suppose you are in a busy environment and your device is lying around somewhere. You sometimes use it but cannot look after it all the time. A sort of high risk environment for phone theft where you could put it in anti theft mode which is enabled when someone moves it or touches the touch screen. This, of course will be set off after a predefined time out awaiting a password to unlock this mode (unprompted?). From the moment it has been moved or touched it will display a warning on a red background flashing in black: You are committing a crime. Put this phone back, now! or any other predefined text. If it is not unlocked it will set off a loud alarm and start sending messages to a predefined email address with pictures, GPS coordinates and network pings.

Sport tracker

Sport tracker can be used to measure the distance/velocity from point A to point B (or it could have several intermediate stopping points) using GPS. This would be extremely useful for running, biking, hiking, etc.

Standby clock

Cycle Computer

As already mentioned by Technil, a cycle computer could be created using gps. The sensor at the bike's wheel could transmit data via bluetooth or some cable that would be attached to an openmoko device. In order to save power, one could switch off the gps and only use the bike's sensor.

Just another idea that came to me: Why don't have sensor's transmit cable plug into the headphone/microphone plug? A tool reads the signals created by the induction of the passing magnet, then gives them to the cycle-computer-app :) --Minime 19:50, 12 April 2007 (CEST)

Internet Connection Management

An application that automatically chooses the best available connection method, between Bluetooth, USBnet, Wifi, GPRS, etc. For GPRS or other services where the user may be paying per kb, there should be options to limit data transfer. The user could be asked permission to transfer data: per connection, per process, per process for a specific time limit, per process for a specific data size limit, etc.

Synergy Client

A synergy client would enable the user to place the device next to a desktop PC and share the desktop`s mouse, keyboard and clipboard over a TCP/IP network. Synergy

Mask ID based on dialed numbers

It would be nice if my number only showed up when I call people in my address book and was otherwise masked. The phone I have now either always shows my number or never or can be set on a per call basis. Having it done automatically based on the number dialed would be good.

Software: Language bindings

Python bindings

Python bindings seem to be a commonly requested feature.

User:Mickey says, "They are kind of usable on the Nokia 770, but it's at the lower end of being bearable. We should keep this in mind -- Gtk+ already comes with Python Bindings, so we "just" would need to wrap libmoko*. I would prefer to leave this to the community do though, since it doesn't make sense to start wrapping the API until we have a stable API -- and I can imagine it will take us a couple of months after going open until we can start with stabilizing the libmoko API."

C++ bindings

There is a whole skilled C++ community coming from the Qtopia and Opie projects. If we would consider basing OpenMoko C++ Bindings on Gtkmm, then we could drag these guys in.

Other bindings

Perl

Ruby

C#

I think you could skip a bunch of these by binding to Dbus; most languages already have Dbus bindings

Software: Foreign Widget Set Bindings

Qt Integration

The Trolltech folks have a great widget library. I'd like to interface OpenMoko with Qt4, so that we can write Qt4 applications for the phone which don't look alienated.

Maemo Integration

The Maemo folks have created a successful standard for Webpad applications. I'd like to have a set of MaemoMoko and MokoMaemo wrapper classes that allow me add support for running OpenMoko applications on Maemo and vice versa. Perhaps we can get help from the Nokia OSS folks for that.

wxWidgets Integration

wxWidgets is a cross-platform application framework that's very popular (I'd say, #3 after Qt and Gtk+). On Linux, wxWidgets uses Gtk+ to implement the widgets. It shouldn't be hard to add support for the additional OpenMoko classes to wxWidgets hence supporting the native OpenMoko look and feel for wxWidgets applications.

wxWidgets team wants OpenMoko classes too and we (wxWidgets) plan to include this project as one of our ideas for GSoC 2007

SDL Integration

SDL is the game developer library. There are tons of SDL games out there. We should add OpenMoko support into SDL.

GPS Software

Providing GPS Support also for outdoor users in addition to ordinary street navigation features

Overlay of satellite images with existing streetmaps

Incorporating SRTM digital elevation model: for example using the VRML/X3D as data format (see http://www.ai.sri.com/geovrml/) which is interesting for e.g. mountaineering: using a 3d browser rendering VRML/X3D Model, displaying the current position and track (possibly also other gps-tracks of the different routes to a summit downloaded before could be mapped onto the 3d model), (what about 3d hardware support? there is nothing written in the hardware specs about graphics: thinking of OpenGL for embedded systems (see http://www.khronos.org/opengles/)

Using sth like a tracking mode to allow certain people to determine the current position and track (for rescue missions)